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ADDRESS 


AT  THE 


EIGHTH   MEETIIN^G 


OF  THE 


Amerioan  Horticultural  Society 


in  2008  with  funding  from 


IN  S 


NIA, 


January  25,  1888. 


By  Parker  Earle, 


PRESIDBNT  OP  THB  SOCIETY. 


INDIANAPOLIS,  IND. : 

CARLON  &  HOLLENBECK,  PRINTERS  AND  PUBLISHERS. 

1888. 


.tp://www.archive.org/details7addressateightlim00earlricl 


American  Horticultural  Society 


OFFICE  OF  SECRETARY, 


Greencastle,  Indiana,  March  25, 1888. 
Dear  Sir: 

The  members  of  the  American  Horticultural  Society,  and  others  who 
were  so  fortunate  as  to  be  permitted  to  listen  to  the  reading  of  the  following 
able  address  of  President  Earle,  which  formed  part  of  the  late  interesting 
meetings  held  in  California,  the  proceedings  of  which  will  soon  be  published 
in  book  form  for  distribution  to  members  of  the  Society  only,  unanimously 
voted  that  it  was  too  valuable  a  paper  to  be  lost  on  so  small  an  edition — that 
it  should  be  freely  distributed  as  a  missionary  document  in  the  interest  of 
American  horticulture.  To  this  end  a  voluntary  fund  was  created,  by  sub- 
scriptions, for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  Secretary  to  publish  in  pamphlet 
form,  for  more  general  and  jree  distribiUion,  a  large  number  of  copies  of  the 
^address. 

Complying  with  these  instructions,  the  Secretary  now  takes  pleasure  in 
presenting  you  a  copy  of  this  able  address,  believing  that  its  careful  perusal 
will  fully  repay  you.  ^^^  ^^^^^ 

W.  H.  RAGAN, 
GIFT  Secretary  A.  H.  S. 


PRESIDENT  EARLE'S  ADDRESS. 

It  was  nearly  fifty  years  ago  that  I  had  my  first  dream  of  an  horticultural 
paradise  as  I  read  in  the  good  old  Bible  story  the  report  of  that  exploring 
committee  which  Moses  sent  out  to  search  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  spy  out 
its  resources,  and  "  to  bring  back  the  fruit  of  the  land."  Now,  Moses  being 
the  wisest  of  his  race,  and  the  greatest  leader  of  men,  did  not  ask  his  com- 
mittee to  bring  back  samples  of  the  grain,  the  merino  wool,  the  short  staple 
cotton,  or  the  best  breeds  of  live  stock,  short-horns  or  Jerseys,  but  simply 
to  bring  back  the  fruit  oj  the  land.  For  Moses  seemed  to  know  that  the  coun- 
try which  could  grow  the  best  fruits  was  the  very  best  country  for  the  chosen 
people  of  the  Lord  to  emigrate  to.  And  when  this  first  horticultural  depu- 
tation returned  laden  with  the  figs,  the  pomegranates,  and  the  great  cluster 
of  grapes  from  the  banks  of  the  brook  of  Eschol,  that  the  two  men  bore  on 
a  staf!"  between  them— and  I  know  that  the  cluster  of  grapes  reached  from 
the  staff  on  the  men's  shoulders  nearly  to  the  ground,  for  my  mother's  great 
Bible  pictured  it  that  way — then  Moses  and  Aaron  and  Caleb  and  the  few  wise 
men  of  Israel  wanted  to  go  up  and  possess  the  land,  notwithstanding  the  sons 
of  Anak  dwelt  there  and  the  other  tribes  of  great  stature.  But  the  mass  of 
the  people  of  Israel  were  ignorant,  and  did  not  appreciate  this  horticultural 
exhibition,  and  the  promise  of  tl*e  better  life  that  was  possible  in  a  fruit- 
growing country,  but  they  grumbled  and  rebelled ;  and  they  all  suffered  the 
righteous  penalty  for  their  neglect  of  such  a  noble  opportunity.  But  I  well 
remember  the  longing  with  which  I  considered  that  enormous  bunch  of 
grapes  and  the  impulse  I  had  to  go  and  find  a  country  where  they  grow 
grapes  in  big  clusters.  Now,  I  think  that  there  are  many  thousands  of  men 
and  women  who  were  little  boys  arid  girls  a  little  while  bi^ck  like  myself — 
only  a  half  century  or  so — who  have  been  carrying  visions  of  the  great 
grapes  of  Eschol  in  their  brains  ever  since  those  early  Bible  readings.  And 
we  have  all  been  wanting  to  come  to  the  land  of  Canaan  ever  since  we  found 
out  where  it  was— that  we  might  see  its  fabulous  fruits  hanging  in  the  golden 
sunshine,  and  taste  the  perfumed  air  of  its  happy  valleys,  while  we  strolled 
along  the  banks  of  the  wonderful  brook  of  Eschol,  and,  perchance,  find  op- 
portunity to  lift  some  of  those  big  grape  clusters  that  are  not  wholly  of  the 
imagination.  aO. 

THE  EARTHLY   PARADISE. 

And  so  a  few  of  us  horticultural  dreamers  ^ave  come  over  the  great  fertile 
plains,  across  the  thirsty  deserts,  and  have  climbed  the  gigantic  walls  which 
fortify  you  against  invasion,  to  test  for  ourselves  the  climate  and  the  fruits 
of  this  earthly  paradise.  We  think  we  like  the  land  and  the  fruits  thereof, 
and  shall  make  a  good  report  of  them  to  all  the  chosen  people  of  Israel. 

My  friends  of  the  land  of  Cnnaan,  we  are  glad  that  we  came.  We  are  glad 

(1) 


164 


to  be  with  you  and  to  see  the  welcome  which  shines  in  all  your  faces.  We 
come  as  fruit-growers,  and  gardeners,  and  forest  planters,  and  builders  of 
homes,  to  greet  our  brethren  in  a  land  whose  conditions  of  culture  we  have 
long  envied.  We  have  come  to  study  these  new  conditions  for  ourselves; 
to  gain  new  ideas  which  we  may  apply  where  our  surroundings  are  less 
favorable ;  to  compare  views  as  to  many  questions  regarding  which  we  have 
a  common  interest;  and  to  drink  with  you  at  the  fountains  of  enthusiasm 
which  have  inspired  you  to  so  many  brilliant  enterprises  all  along  this 
golden  coast. 

HORTICULTURE. 

Horticulture  is  a  broad  term.  It  covers  almost  everything  that  makes 
our  country  beautiful  and  sweet  to  live  in.  It  embraces  the  operations 
of  the  fruit-grower,  the  skillful  manipulations  of  the  gardener,  the  arts 
of  the  landscape  builder,  and  all  that  relates  to  the  planting  of  forests  in  a 
land  that  perishes  without  them.  Every  horticulturist  should  be  a  mission- 
ary. He  should  be  an  educator  of  the  public  taste  as  regards  trees  and  flow- 
ers and  lawn  plantings  and  fruit  gardens.  He  should  be  an  enthusiast  for 
the  beauty  of  his  town.  He  should  stimulate  the  making  of  parks,  the 
adorning  of  cemeteries  and  school-house  yards,  the  planting  of  groups  of 
roadside  trees.  The  true  horticulturist  will  make  his  mark  in  the  commu- 
nity in  which  he  lives.  I  think  that  one  of  the  great  needs  of  the  time  is  a 
generous  enthusiasm  for  horticultural  improvement.  We  want  tree-plant- 
ing associations  in  every  town  in  the  land.  Every  man  should  not  only 
make  his  own  home  beautiful,  but  should  find  some  stimulus  for  his  neigh- 
bor whose  grounds  are  lean  and  bare. 

The  work  that  has  been  done  by  horticultural  agencies  in  redeeming 
this  great  country,  its  towns  and  its  farms,  from  the  nakedness  of  forty  years 
ago  is  something  to  rejoice  in.  The  land  is  blossoming  with  beauty  in  thou- 
sands of  parks  and  lawns  and  cottage  door-yards ;  but  many  leagues  of  bar- 
renness still  stretch  along  almost  all  of  our  railways  and  highways,  a  vast 
field  for  the  preacher  of  this  new  gospel  of  beauty  and  home  comfort ;  and 
until  every  farm-house  and  cottage  in  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  this 
magnificent  country  shall  be  blessed  by  sheltering  trees  and  blooming  beds, 
or  climbing  vines,  or  some  sweet  spot  of  green  turf  which  shows  the  out- 
bursting  longing  of  the  immortal  spirit  for  beauty — until  every  American 
farm  shall  have  its  garden  for  vegetables  and  fruit,  and  every  village  lot  its 
fruit-bearing  tree  or  vine,  will  the  duty  of  the  horticulturist  as  a  teacher  and 
a  missionary  be  partly  undone. 

NARROW  DISCUSSIONS. 

I  think  it  has  often  been  a  fault  of  our  horticultural  societies  that  their 
range  of  discussion  has  been  too  narrow.  They  have  been  given  too  much 
to  the  special  interests  which  affected  the  business  of  the  majority  of  mem- 

(2) 


bers,  and  too  little  to  those  relating  to  the  public  welfare.  In  fact,  we  are 
often  simply  pomological  societies  or  nurserymen's  clubs.  We  come 
together  with  our  great  problems  of  culture,  of  insect  management,  of  the 
cures  for  mildews  and  blights,  and  our  whole  business  success  is  often  in- 
volved in  finding  answers  to  these  vexing  questions,  and  we  are  prone  to 
neglect  the  sweet  influences  which  make  for  beauty  alone  and  the  refine- 
ment of  the  home. 

I  hope  for  an  extension  of  all  horticultural  influences,  for  more  socie- 
ties, for  more  horticultural  columns  in  the  press,  for  social  rural  clubs  and 
tree-planting  associations,  because  I  believe  that  the  great  horticultural 
movement  of  this  age  is  doing  far  more  for  the  higher  civilization  than  all 
the  factories  and  forges  and  trade  guilds  in  the  land.  Let  us  labor  gener- 
ously toward  that  millennial  day  when  every  cottage  shall  shine  with  some 
of  the  beauty  and  every  laborer's  table  carry  some  of  the  fruits  of  our  art.   ■ 

FRUIT-GROWING. 

But  while  I  would  exhort  everybody  to  grow  trees  and  vines  and  plants 
for  beauty  and  fruits  for  home  supply,  I  do  not  by  any  means  seek  to  influ- 
ence any  large  increase  of  fruit-growing  for  commercial  purposes,  for  I  be- 
lieve that  fruit-growing  as  a  business  is  increasing  quite  as  fast  as  our  facili- 
ties for  distribution,  and  rather  more  rapidly  than  is  profitable  to  the  grow- 
ers. It  appears  to  me  that  there  is  no  subject  of  more  immediate  practical 
interest  to  the  commercial  fruit-grower  than  this  one  of  the  means  for  a 
wide  distribution.  You  are  all  well  aware  that  our  most  important  and 
staple  fruits  often  sell  at  ruinous  prices  in  our  leading  markets,  not  only  on 
particular  days,  but  for  long  periods.  The  shippers  of  pCcirs  from  California, 
of  peaches  from  Delaware;  of  apples  from  Michigan,  of  strawberries  from 
Illinois,  and  of  oranges  from  Florida,  can  all  testify  to  this.  Yet  I  do  not 
think  that  too  many  of  either  of  these  fruits  of  good  quality  have  ever  been 
grown  in  any  of  these  states,  nor  enough  for  the  markets  that  were  within 
practical  reach  of  them,  or  the  mouths  that  were  hungry  for  them.  The 
fault  is  with  our  transportation,  and  our  lack  of  any  far-reaching  and  elabo- 
rate system  of  distribution.  I  think  I  have  known  good  oranges  to  sell  at 
not  much  over  one  cent  apiece  at  wholesale  in  Chicago,  the  market  being 
overloaded,  when  there  were  a  thousand  towns  within  a  day's  ride  of  that 
city  in  which  you  could  not  buy  an  orange  for  less  than  five  cents— and  not 
many  at  that — and  millions  of  people  within  the  same  radius  who  did  not 
taste  an  orange  in  the  whole  winter.  Yet  the  fruit  distribution  from  Chi- 
cago is  more  closely  worked  than  from  any  other  American  city. 

DISTANT  MARKETS. 

There  have  been  many  winters  in  which  the  price  of  winter  apples  has 
paid  the  producer  very  lean  profits,  and  paid  the  large  dealers  more  losses 

(3) 


than  gains,  while  at  that  same  time  an  apple  was  a  rarity,  if  not  an  absolute 
stranger,  in  half  the  farmers'  homes  and  laborers'  cottages  in  America.  The 
delicious  apricots  of  your  Pacific  coast  are  often  left  to  decay  in  the  luxuri- 
ant orchards  that  bear  them  for  want  of  a  market,  while  not  one-tenth  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  ever  tasted  an  apricot  in  their  lives.  Yet,  by 
using  the  best  modern  means  of  transportation,  your  most  delicate  varieties, 
picked  ripe  from  the  trees  and  full  of  excellence— and  not,  as  they  are  now  for 
long  shipment,  too  green  to  be  of  high  quality — can  be  laid  down  in  all  of  our 
great  eastern  markets  in  very  perfect  condition. 

The  same  difficulty  exists  with  most  of  our  fruits.  So  many  of  our 
available  markets  are  not  reached ;  and  the  fruit-grower  suffers  from  an  ap- 
parent over-production  when  half  the  people  go  hungry  for  fruits  which  they 
need  and  can  not  obtain.  This  condition  of  trade  is  not  found  in  the  case  of 
staple  goods  of  other  kinds,  and  manufactured  articles ;  for  all  these  goods 
are  handled  according  to  a  more  thorough  business  system.  The'  more 
perishable  nature  of  our  fruits  must  of  necessity  modify  and  limit  the  same 
system  of  thorough  commercial  canvassing  by  which  more  durable  products 
are  placed  constantly  in  every  town  and  hamlet  in  the  country;  but  I  feel 
sure  that  regular  fruit  markets  can  be  built  up  in  thousands  of  towns  that 
now  get  no  supplies,  except  in  the  most  irregular  way,  by  an  energetic  system 
of  canvassing.  This  subject  demands  the  serious  attention  of  our  growers 
and  dealers. 

TRICKS  OF  TRADE. 

This  leads  me  to  notice  one  grave  reason  why  the  building  up  of  a  reg- 
ular fruit  trade  is  more  difficult  than  it  should  be.  This  reason  is  the  irreg- 
ular quality  and  serious  imperfections  of  a  majority  of  the  fruits  sent  to 
market.  Both  the  dealers  and  consumers  soon  get  disgusted  when  they  find 
half  the  peaches  in  a  basket,  or  half  the  apples  in  a  barrel,  wormy;  and  in. 
the  case  of  the  peaches  find  all  of  them  green,  hard  and  inedible  below  the 
top  layer;  and  even  the  top  course  seeming  ripe  and  well  colored  only  when 
seen  through  the  delusive  tarlatan  which  is  bound  tightly  over  them.  A 
basket  of  green  peaches  with  a  goodly  supply  of  worms,  and  with  sizable 
specimens  placed  on  top,  and  then  all  covered  tightly  and  beyond  examina- 
tion by  a  colored  netting  which  makes  them  all  appear  blushing  with  ripe- 
ness, is  a  cheat  and  a  fraud  so  contemptible  and  disgusting  that  it  should 
consign  the  perpetrator  of  such  a  swindle  to  the  tender  couch  of  the  county 
jail.  It  is  only  equaled  by  a  barrel  of  apples  that  is  faced  up  handsomely  at 
both  ends  and  is  filled  with  scabby  and  wormy  scrubs  through  the  middle. 

I  regret  to  say  that  such  baskets  of  peaches  and  such  barrels  of  apples  are 
forced  off  upon  an  innocent  buying  public  by  hundreds  of  thousands  every 
year.  I  think  and  hope  that  the  most  abused  fruit  market  in  the  world  in 
this  respect  is  that  best  of  all  the  fruit  markets  of  the  world,  the  city  of  Chi. 
cago,  I  will  venture  the  guess  here  that,  of  all  the  millions  of  people  that  have 
this  year  bought  peaches  coming  through  the  Chicago  market,  not  one  in  four 

(4) 


has  had  occasion  to  bless  the  grower  of  the  fruit;  and  in  most  cases  he  has 
been  objurgated,  if  not  cursed.  I  dwell  particularly  upon  this  kind  of  fruit 
and  this  kind  of  package  because  it  is  the  most  notable  example  of  a  wide- 
spread attempt  to  deceive  the  buyer  to  be  found-in  all  our  fruit  marketing 
history.  It  will  not  be  a  good  excuse  to  say  that  red  tarlatan  is  necessary  to 
hold  the  fruit  in  place  in  the  baskets,  because  white  netting  with  a  very  open 
mesh  will  serve  that  purpose  equally  well  and  will  not  obscure  the  real  color 
And  no  well-colored  peach  can  be  made  more  beautiful  by  any  kind  of  cover- 
ing. Is  it  any  wonder  that  respectable  grocers  dislike  to  trade  in  our  fresh 
fruits,  and  that  the  people  get  sick  and  weary  of  buying  them,  when  the  open- 
ing of  every  new  package  is  the  unveiling  of  a  new  deception  ? 

AN    EARNEST  PROTEST. 

I-am  a  fruit-grower,  a  fruit-packer,  and  a  fruit-buyer,  and  I  stand  here 
in  all  three  capacities  to  protest,  in  all  the  earnestness  of  my  soul,  against  all 
kinds  of  deception  in  fruit-packing.  It  is  impolitic  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  it  is  unworthy  of  all  decent  men.  A  large  dealer  not  long  since  said  to 
me  that  the  whole  business  of  fruit-packing,  east  and  west,  north  and  south, 
with  now  and  then  an  exception,  is  worm-eaten, and  rotten  with  dishonesty. 
My  friends,  I  hope  his  denunciation  was  unjust,  and  I  believe  it  is  far  too 
sweeping,  but  severe  criticism  is  called  for. 

Let  us  away  with  all  stuffings  and  facings,  with  all  deceptive  coverings, 
with  all  undersized  packages,  with  the  packing  of  all  green,  half-grown, 
gnarly  and  worm-eaten  fruit  in  any  kind  of  packages.  If  we  must  pack 
poor  fruit,  put  it  on  top  where  it  will  tell  its  own  story.  Let  us  do  this,  and 
we  shall  find  that  it  will  pay  in  money,  pay  in  the  plaudits  we  shall  win  from 
all  men,  and  in  our  own  self-respect  and  integrity  of  soul.  I  should  say  here, 
and  I  cheerfully  do  say,  that  I  believe  that  the  California  fruit  packers  are 
generally  far  less  open  to  criticism  in  this  matter  of  straight  packing  than 
are  the  majority  of  eastern  growers.  You  can  not  afford  to  pay  freight  on 
trash  two  or  three  thousand  miles.  Yet  there  is  some  room  for  improve- 
ment in  the  selection  and  grading  of  fruits  from  this  pre-eminent  horticult-. 
ural  state.  It  can  not  be  too  often  or  too  earnestly  impressed  upon  fruit 
men  everywhere  that  to  secure  the  best  results  the  most  scrupulous  pains 
must  be  taken,  not  only  in  growing  fruit  properly,  but  in  careful  handling, 
thorough  grading,  and  unflinching  honesty  in  packing.  The  man  with  a 
high  standard,  well  worked  up  to,  is  the  man  who  will  come  out  best  in  the 
race. 

FRUIT   PRODUCTION. 

The  business  of  fruit  production  is  growing  to  be  so  vast  a  one  in  many 
sections  of  this  country  that  the  time  has  fully  come  for  giving  it  more 
thorough  organization  than  it  has  had  before.  There  are  many  considerable 
sections  of  the  country  where  it  is  already  the  overshadowing  industrial  in- 

(5) 


terest,  and  it  seems  to  me  probable  that  in  your  great  and  glorious  state  of 
California  it  will  soon  overtop  every  other  producing  interest.  For  you,  as 
for  Florida  and  Delaware,  and  large  sections  of  New  York,  Michigan,  Illi- 
nois, Missouri,  Georgia,  Arkansas,  and  other  states,  these  questions  of  trans- 
portation, distribution,  a  high  standard  of  packing,  and  a  high  standard  of 
quality  of  fruits,  are  questions  of  overwhelming  business  importance.  The 
United  States  is  the  great  fruit  country  of  the  world.  There  is  no  limit  to 
the  possibility  of  our  fruit  production  when  insect  and  fungoid  troubles  are 
handled  by  energy  guided  by  science.  There  will  be  no  limit  to  it  except 
that  of  pecuniary  profit.  We  can  furnish  the  nations  of  the  old  world  with 
fruit,  as  we  do  with  bread  and  meat  and  cotton.  There  is  no  reason  why 
the  peaches  of  California  and  Mississippi  and  Michigan  and  Georgia  should 
not  be  laid  down  in  the  European  markets.  I  speak  temperately,  and  my 
conclusions  are  teased  upon  my  own  experience  as  a  shipper  of  fruit.  The 
facilities  for  doing  this  do  not  at  present  exist,  but  they  are  known,  and 
within  the  reach  of  a  properly  organized  effort.  Hence,  I  see  a  future  for 
the  horticultural  interest  of  this  country  that  is  glorious  and  vast  as  the  blue 
canopy  of  a  summer  sky.  To  reach  any  grand  and  rewarding  results  every 
step  must  be  taken  with  care  and  thoroughness. 

MICROSCOPIC   FUNGI. 

Among  the  many  obstacles  to  success  in  fruit-growing,  the  most  de- 
structive and  most  difficult  to  overcome  are  the  payriad  tribes  of  micro- 
scopic fungi  which  assail  plant  and  tree  and  vine  and  fruit.  There  is  no 
branch  of  our  business  which  does  not  suffer  serious  annual  losses  from 
these  obscure  enemies,  and  no  climate  or  section  so  fortunate  as  to  long 
escape  their  attacks.  The  discouraged  fruit-grower  who  has  lost  his  pear 
trees  by  the  omnipresent  blight;  his  peach  trees  by  the  insidious  yellows; 
his  grape-vines  by  the  mildew,  whose  white  shroud  extinguishes  all  hope  for 
fruit ;  his  apple  crop  having  become  scabby,  and  his  strawberry  plants  having 
been  burned  by  the  rust  as  by  a  consuming  fire,  turns  his  face  away  from 
the  old  homestead  upon  which  all  these  horticultural  curses  have  fallen,  and 
travels  to  some  new  fair  land  where  smiling  skies  and  sweet  winds  promise 
him  immunity  from  all  these  evils.  For  a  few  years  these  promises  are 
kept,  and  his  virgin  crops  are  fair  as  the  golden  apples  of  Hesperides.  But 
his  obscure  enemies  follow  him  with  the  certainty  of  an  avenging  fate,  and 
they  will  follow  him  the  wide  world  over,  even  within  the  gates  of  Eden  it- 
self, if  he  does  not  wage  an  exterminating  warfare  upon  them. 

You  can  not  probably  name  a  fruit  that  we  grow  which  is  not  preyed 
upon  by  four  or  five  or  more  of  these  lilliputian  foes.  The  number  thatafTect 
the  interests  of  horticulture  can  not  be  stated,  but  it  is  certainly  counted  by 
hundreds,  a  single  one  of  which,  like  the  scab  on  pears  and  apples,  costs  the 
American  fruit-growers  millions  of  dollars  annually.  I  think  it  safe  to  say 
that  the  quantity  of  fruits  entirely  destroyed,  or  so  seriously  defaced  as  to 

(6) 


lose  their  market  value,  in  this  country  by  these  low  forms  of  vegetable  life 
is  f^r  greater  than  all  that  escapes  their  attack.  This  difficulty  grows  greater 
year  by  year  in  all  fruit-growing  neighborhoods.  That  this  is  a  situation 
which  demands  the  serious  attention  of  all  horticultural  people  I  need  not 
suggest. 

LACK  OF   KNOWLEDGE. 

Our  definite  scientific  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  this  vast  underworld 
of  microscopic  life,  which  pervades  and  attacks  and  overwhelms  all  the 
higher  and  nobler  forms  of  vegetable  organism,  is  as  yet  incomplete,  and  is 
all  very  modern.  It  is  the  most  obscure  domain  of  physical  research.  The 
botanists  who  have  thoroughly  studied  the  fungology  of  this  country,  and 
have  done  something  to  master  its  elusive  problems,  can  be  almost  num- 
bered on  the  fingers  of  the  two  hands.  We  have  thousands  of  scientific  men, 
and  hundreds  of  specialists,  who  are  making  plain  paths  through  the  in- 
tricacies of  scientific  obscurity,  but  this  great  and  universal  realm  of  the 
infinitely  little  things  which  attack  all  superior  creations,  and  assail  the  in- 
tegrity of  every  structure  which  enters  into  our  civilization,  has  received 
little  investigation. 

What  we  need  is  more  workers  in  this  field.  We  must  have  more 
knowledge,  and  that  we  may  have  investigation  we  must  provide  in  some 
definite  way  for  the  support  of  it.  Is  there  any  more  important  kind  of  work 
for  our  agricultural  colleges,  and  for  our  state  experimental  stations  ?  I  urge 
this  matter  upon  your  thoughtful  consideration. 

A  UOBLE  OCCUPATION. 

The  business  of  fruit-growing  is  one  of  the  noblest  occupations  of  the 
world,  if  carried  on  with  a  faithful  spirit.  The  results  of  our  work  con- 
tribute directly  and  powerfully  to  the  betterment  of  mankind.  We  min- 
ister to  the  health  and  the  moral  stature  of  the  community.  I  would  have 
every  horticulturist  regard  his  vocation  with  becoming  pride.  We  work 
with  the  great  forces  of  nature.  We  form  alliances  with  the  sunshine  and 
the  rain,  and  the  secret  affinities  of  the  soil.  We  manipulate  the  occult  en- 
ergies of  chemistry.  We  join  hands  with  Providence  to  produce  our  har- 
vests. The  American  fruit-grower,  like  the  American  farmer,  should  hold 
his  head  proudly,  but  reverently,  as  the  best  man  of  the  world.  As  I  look 
at  it,  there  is  no  man  on  earth  that  outranks  the  well  equipped  and  com- 
petent American  farmer  and  American  fruit-farmer.  But  equipment  of 
knowledge  and  intellectual  competency  mean  a  great  deal. 

THE  NEED  OF  BROAD  CULTURE. 

The  successful  and  ideal  farmer  must  be  a  man  of  culture  and  of  science, 
must  have  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  world,  its  great  industries,  its  history, 

(7) 


its  commercial  needs.  He  must  be  a  power  in  the  community  and  in  the 
state.  Are  we  taking  the  necessary  educational  steps  to  produce  such 
farmers?  There  is  no  question  which  a  convention  of  horticulturists,  rep- 
resenting every  section  of  our  country,  can  more  appropriately  consider 
than  that  of  the  facilities  we  are  providing  for  the  education  of  the  American 
farmer  as  he  should  be.  We  have  the  foundation  for  the  best  educational 
system  of  any  nation  in  the  world,  and  we  have  a  more  earnest  general 
desire  to  find  the  best  kind  of  education.  Our  farmers  and  our  agricultural 
writers  are  more  widely  imbued  with  this  desire  than  this  same  class  in  any 
other  country. 

Yet  I  fear  that  the  present  tendency  is  to  place  our  standard  too  low. 
I  am  greatly  in  sympathy  with  our  agricultural  colleges  and  with  the  in- 
dustrial departments  of  our  universities,  but  I  can  not  join  in  the  general 
criticism  of  those  institutions  which  attempt  to  give  a  generous  literary 
culture  as  well  as  a  good  technical  training.  In  fact,  I  feel  like  protesting 
earnestly  against  the  general  trend  of  the  discussion  in  the  agricultural  press 
toward  a  purely  technical,  manual,  industrial  education. 

The  American  farmer  should  be  the  most  liberally  educated  and  broadly 
cultured  man  in  the  American  state.  The  farmers  as  a  class  far  outnumber 
the  class  of  manufacturers,  or  of  merchants,  or  of  professional  men,  or  of  all 
these  classes  together,  and  yet  they  have  less  influence  in  molding  the  in- 
dustrial and  political  policies  that  govern  us  than  either  one  of  these  other 
classes.  Why  is  this,  except  that  the  farmer  has  learned  how  to  plo<v  and 
to  mow  and  to  dig  ditches  better  than  he  has  learned  how  to  think?  His 
edutation  has  been  too  generally  confined  to  those  rudiments  necessary  to 
give  him  practical  success  as  a  farmer  in  a  narrow  sphere.  And  here  come 
the  doctrinaires  of  the  new  industrial  education  and  propose  the  same  pol- 
icy for  our  agricultural  colleges,  only  in  a  larger  degree. 

This  wide  spread  sentiment  is,  it  seems  to  me,  one  of  the  saddest  mis- 
takes of  the  age.  It  proposes  an  education  as  deficient  in  general  mental 
culture  as  the  old  classical  schools  are  lacking  in  scientific  and  technical 
training.  The  true  education  that  will  make  broad-minded,  forceful  men 
of  our  bright  boys  must  embrace  all  that  is  best  and  all  that  is  possible  of 
both  the  old  and  the  new  systems.  Let  us  by  all  means  shed  all  the  light  of 
science  on  the  difficult  problems  of  agriculture— let  us  teach  engineering 
and  drainage  and  stock  management  and  veterinary  practice ;  but  let  us 
not  try  to  eliminate  the  Latin  from  the  nomenclature  of  science  or  go  into 
editorial  spasms  at  the  sight  of  a  pile  of  Greek  roots. 

I  believe  that  the  farmer  will  never  take  his  proper  place  as  a  director 
in  great  affairs  of  economy  and  statesmanship  until  he  is  educated  as  the 
lawyer,  the  minister,  the  physician,  manufacturer,  merchant  and  statesman 
are  educated;  until  he  becomes  a  student,  if  not  a  master,  in  all  lines  of 
classical,  literary,  Eesthetic  and  scientific  culture,  as  have  the  controlling  men 
who  gauge  our  policies  and  direct  our  atfairs.    The  plea  so  earnestly  and 

(8J 


frequently  made  against  classical  and  literary  teaching  in  our  agricultural 
colleges  is  a  plea  for  mental  narrowness  and  intellectual  incapacity.  The 
technically  educated  farmer  may  guide  the  plow  to  turn  the  truest  furrow, 
but  he  may  not  be  able  to  do  much  good  in  holding  the  helm  of  state* 
Facility  in  forging  plowshares,  in  turning  the  parts  of  an  engine,  in  grafting 
and  training  fruit  trees,  in  the  economical  care  of  stock  and  the  treatment 
of  sick  animals — all  these  accomplishments  so  essential  to  the  artisan  and 
the  farmer  as  such— nevertheless  fail  to  qualify  him  for  the  higher  social 
duties  and  the  solemn  responsibilities  of  the  citizen  who  should  be  foremost 
of  men  in  controlling  the  great  policies  of  the  commonwealth.  In  fact,  a 
well  trained  faculty  for  tile  drainage  is  not  a  liberal  education.  Cincinnatus 
was  called  from  the  plow  to  the  chieftaincy  of  a  people,  not  because  his  hand 
could  hold  the  plow  well,  but  because  his  educated  brain  could  master  the 
great  problems  of  the  state.  The  men  who  have  made  farming  and  horti- 
culture a  noble  occupation,  who  have  given  dignity  to  labor,  who  have 
voiced  the  needs  of  agriculture  and  the  longings  of  industry,  are  not 
the  men  who  have  had  simply  a  dexterous  manual  skill,  but  they  are 
men  whose  minds  have  had  that  generous  training  and  culture  in  all  the 
learning  of  the  ages,  as  well  hs  the  science  of  to  day,  which  have  given  them 
a  masterful  position  among  the  best  men  of  the  time. 

FORESTRY. 

1  should  be  recreant  to  the  duty  of  this  hour  if  1  did  not  call  your  atten- 
tion once  more,  as  I  have  often  done  before,  to  the  commanding  question 
of  forestry.  To  one  who  has  watched  the  deforesting  work  of  one  generation 
of  men  in  all  the  woodland  portions  of  this  country,  and  noted  the  gradual 
change  of  climate  from  one  of  mild  conditions  to  one  of  extremes  as  the 
great  conservative  forests  have  disappeared,  it  would  seem  that  no  appeal 
should  be  necessary  to  arouse  every  class  of  thinking  men  to  take  some  im- 
mediate action  to  arrest  the  threatening  waste  of  our  forests  and  to  rebuild 
these  faithful  guardians  of  climate  and  soil.  There  is  nothing  better  estab- 
lished in  physical  science  than  that  a  good  proportion  of  forest  is  nece.-s«ry 
to  maintain  equability  of  climate.  It  is  conceded  by  scientific  men,  and 
sustained  by  practical  experience  in  many  countries,  that  as  much  as  one- 
hfth  or  one-fourth  of  the  land  should  be  in  forests  to  secure  the  greatest  ag- 
gregate of  agricultural  crops.  I  can  not  stop  to  discuss  the  philosophy  of 
this  statement,  but  the  fact  will  scarcely  be  questioned.  There  are  several 
of  our  states  that  have  passed  the  limit  of  safety  in  timber  waste ;  but  the 
work  of  woodland  destruction  goes  on  -w  ith  remorseless  energy.  I  can  name 
you  states  where  nearly  or  quite  one  half  of  the  total  area  of  land  has  been 
laid  bare  of  forest  growth  in  about  a  quarter  of  a  century.  iSome  of  them 
have  not  five  per  cent,  of  their  valuable  timber  left ;  and  so  far  neither  the 
nation  nor  any  state  has  made  any  serious  attempt  to  stop  the  waste  or  to 
promote  forest  culture.     The  governments  of  other  countries  show  much 

(9) 


more  wisdom  than  we.  The  European  grovernments  live  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  ruin  and  national  decay  that  have  come  to  once  fertile  and 
populous  lands.  The  institutions  of  civilization  have  never  declined  in  a 
country  that  has  maintained  its  forests — I  think  I  can  safely  say  that  they 
have  never  been  maintained  in  any  country  that  has  wasted  its  woodland 
heritage  without  repair.  Hence,  these  enlightened  governments  have  been 
long  taking  the  most  vigorous  measures  to  conserve  and  to  restore  the  great 
protective  agency  of  the  green  and  glorious  woods. 

It  is  the  clear  duty  of  our  general  government  to  absolutely  prohibit 
the  further  slaughter  of  the  timber  on  its  domain,  and  to  withdraw  all  forest 
lands  from  sale  except  to  meet  the  pressing  needs  of  settlers.  And  why 
should  not  this  government  take  similar  measures  to  those  taken  in  the  old 
world  to  establish  forests  on  treeless  public  lands  ?  And  can  not  our  state 
governments  encourage  timber  planting  by  a  judicious  system  of  bounties, 
and  arrest  its  waste  by  a  very  heavy  tax  on  timber  cutting?  By  some  such 
plan,  or  by  some  plan,  the  states  should  take  prompt  action  for  the  upbuild- 
ing of  forestry ;  and  no  graver  responsibility  rests  upon  our  legislatures 
than  this. 

THOSE  GONE   BEFORE. 

There  is  one  sad  duty  remaining  to  me  on  this  occasion  r  to  announce 
the  names  of  two  friends  who  have  passed  onward  beyond  the  reach  of 
mortal  vision.  This  society  had  no  more  zealous  member,  and  horticulture 
no  warmer  friend,  than  A.  C.  Kendel,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  who  died  during 
the  last  autumn.  Many  of  our  members  mourn  his  loss  as  that  of  a  brother. 
Mr.  Kendel  was  one  of  our  largest  and  most  useful  fruit  merchants,  and  was 
one  of  the  class  whose  faithfulness  and  integrity  all  men  praised.  He  was 
the  affectionate  head  of  a  devoted  family ;  he  was  active  in  every  good  work 
for  helping  his  fellow-men;  he  was  in  all  places  a  gentleman,  and  in  all  the 
relations  of  life  the  soul  of  honor.  In  the  death  of  such  men  in  the  maturity 
of  their  powers  society  suffers  a  great  loss.  We  who  knew  him  well  will 
never  know  a  better  man. 

The  death  of  Colonel  Marf:hall  P.  Wilder,  the  venerable  president  of  the 
American  Pomological  Society, although  not  unexpected — for  he  was  eighty- 
eight  years  old — yet  cast  a  certain  sorrow  over  the  entire  horticultural 
world.  For  half  a  century  he  had  been  at  the  head  of  American  pomology. 
His  fame  was  world-wide.  Boston  has  been  the  home  of  many  great  men, 
but  she  had  few  citizens  of  such  stately  presence  as  our  noble  friend.  Presi- 
dent Wilder  had  a  kingly  aspect  and  bearing,  but  he  had  a  queenly  heart, 
as  gentle  and  true  as  your  own  mother's.  None  knew  him  but  to  admire 
him  and  to  love  him.  He  lived  out  a  great  and  well-rounded  life  here,  and 
he  has  gone  forward  to  those  happy  uplands  where  frosts  wither  not  nor 
blights  destroy  the  immortal  fruitage  on  the  heavenly  hills. 

(10) 


